Havana, Cuba.- The President of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, urged to banish the importing mentality of the food industry to make way for innovation and efficient exploitation of the country’s potential.

The President called for creating conditions to increase the exportable capacities of the country, be it identifying new fields or recovering of others, during his speech, which closed the meeting in which the development of that sector during 2019 and the strategic projections for 2020 were analyzed.

Diaz-Canel considered that the destination markets for Cuban goods should be diversified, and pointed out that the mechanisms related to the safety and quality of the food identified for sale abroad should be perfected.

He also called for increasing the country’s manufacturing capabilities, for strengthening productive lines, for modernizing the industry and urged for a greater stability in the purchase of the raw materials which supply the country.

The restrictions that Cuba suffers in relation to the supply of fuel due to the United States blockade were also mentioned by the President, when he suggested that the Cuban food industry should find energy alternatives that allow it to operate.

Some of the priorities in the work projections of the Ministry of the Food Industry for the short term, are among others, increasing food production for the population and the safety and quality of the preparations.

Likewise, foreign investment and international collaboration as a source of financing for development, and the increase in diversification of foreign sales and import substitution are fundamental directives.

The attendees at the meeting debated fundamentally about how to increase the industrial processing of food in Cuba and the import policy of manufactured products.